to tempt Him to a Confidence in their integrity that they might the more easily to His disgrace ruine Him and murder Him by His own Concessions if He would be deluded by them highly pretend to a Compassionate Sense of His Sufferings and complain of the Parliaments Barbarous Imprisoning Him in His own Palaces wondering they had no more Reverence for Majesty and to beget a belief of this they profess which they would have to be conceived with them was more sacred than any Oaths that they will never part with their Arms till they have made His way to His Throne and rendred the Condition of His Party more tolerable Besides these Promises and Compassions they permit Him the Ministery of His Chaplains in the Worship of God which it is said He took with so great a Joy that He almost believed Himself free and safe it being His most heavy burden while He was the Parliaments Captive the Commerce of Letters with the Queen the Visits of His own Party and the Service of His Courtiers some of whom they also admitted to their Council of War mould Propositions which they will urge in His behalf and alter them to the King's Gust and at His Advice In their publick Remonstrances against the Covetousness Ambition Injustice Cruelty and Self-mindedness of the Parliament they do sometimes obliquely sometimes plainly profess that the King Queen and the Royal Family must be restored to all their Rights or else no hope of a solid Peace but then they would intermix such Conditions as argued they sought Reserves for a perfidious escape For Cromwell did among his Confidents boast of his fine Arts and that by these Indulgences was intended nothing but His Destruction By all these Impostures they prevailed nothing upon the Hopes or Fears of the King nor did He commit any thing unworthy His former Fortune and the Greatness of His Integrity and Wisdom or which any of the Disagreeing Factions could use to His reproach But they found another kind of Success upon the Parliament for they sacrificed to the Commands of their Stipendiaries eleven Members of the House of Commons and seven of the Peers causing them to forbear sitting among them because they had been accused by the Army in a very frivolous Charge All men wondering at the inequality of those mens Spirits who had so furiously rejected the Articles of their lawfull Sovereign against five or six of their Body and yet did now so tamely yield to the slight Cavils and dislike of their Mercenaries above thrice that Number They therefore concluded that neither Religion Justice or the Love of Liberty which are alwayes uniform but unworthy Interests and corrupt Souls which vary with fears and hopes had been the Principles and first Movers of their attempts Besides this they were so prone to Slavery that they had gone on to Vote all the lusts of the Army had not a Tumult their Arts being now turned upon their own heads from London stopp'd them in their violent speed and kept the Speaker in his Chair till they had voted more generously that it was neither for their Honour nor Interest to satisfie the demands of the Souldiers and that the King should come to London to treat These contrary desires of the divided Faction which had joyntly oppressed their Sovereign shewed that Ill men will more easily conspire together in War than consent in Peace and that Combinations in Crimes will conclude in Jealousies each Party thinking the advantages of the other too great and that Power is never thought faithfull which is accounted excessive Therefore both prepare for War With the 140 Members that sate in Parliament were joyned the City and the cashiered Souldiers and Officers that had served in their pay With the Army were the Speakers of both Houses who had sled to them with about fifty of their Members that projected the Change of Government being either for an Oligarchy or Democracie yet left some of the same judgement behind to betray and disturb the Counsels at London To these did adhere the Neighbouring Counties who were cajoled by the splendid Promises of the Army of Restoring the King which they much boasted Dissolving the Parliament and Establishing Peace and Government and they more willingly credited these because they had conceived an hatred of the Parliament and City both for beginning the War and now obstructing Peace The Army intitle their attempts for King and People Their Adversaries for bringing the King to His Parliament The Commanders were greedy of that War which promised an easie Victory and made the poor Souldiers hope for the Plunder of the City For the advantage was clear on the Army's side which consisted of veterane Souldiers united among themselves by a long Converse and known Commanders but the force of the other was made up of a tumultuary Multitude gathered under new Leaders and so had no mutual confidence their meetings were full of doubts and fears none could determine in private nor in publick Consult because they dared not trust one another and it was observed that those who were most treacherous talk'd most boldly against the Enemy Therefore in the very beginnings the Parliament and City desert their Enterprise Treat with and open their Gates to the Army who march in Triumph through London bringing the Speakers and their Fellow-Travellers to their Chairs seize upon the Tower dismantle the Fortifications pull down all the Chains and Posts of the City send the Lord Mayor and the Chief Citizens to the Tower and reduce all the Power of the Nation in Obedience to the Commanders For Fairfax is made General of all the Forces both in England and Ireland and Rainsbrough a Leveller and a violent Head of the Democraticks High Admiral The impeached Presbyterians fled beyond Sea others of that Sect drooping complyed with the Fortune of the Conquerours and that which grieved good Men most was a Publick Thanksgiving which is not to be observed but for the happy endeavours of a Nation in their vertuous and glorious undertakings for Liberty and Safety but now was prophaned for our Slavery and Misery to God was appointed for the Army and they were entertained now at a Feast whom before the City would have forced from their Walls While these things were in Motion the King consults Heaven for Direction and his Party modestly abstain from either side thought both to be abhorred and knew that Party would be the worst which should overcome The Army having now the greatest strengths of the Nation the Parliament and City at their obedience make no mention of their former promises to the King only the Adjutators were fierce for breaking that Parliament and calling another as they call'd it more equal Representative But both their Synagogue and the Council of War being now delivered from fear of the Presbyterians began to contrive the destruction both of the King and Monarchy As for the King whom they had now brought to Hampton-Court some that had before contrived His
Caution That there should be no attempt made upon the King's Person but being entertained at one of His own Palaces He should there be treated with upon Propositions from both Nations which should speedily be sent to Him But the Parliament never thought of sending any Propositions till He came under the Power of the Army who had malicious Designs upon His Person The Commissioners receiving Him convey Him to His own House at Holmeby This was a very curious and stately Building yet was not therefore chosen because it might be a Majestick Prison but because it was within Ken of Naseby which was infamous with His Overthrow that so the Neighbourhood to it might more afflict His grieved Spirit To this unpleasingness of the Place they added other discomforts by making the restraint so strict that they suffered none to come near Him that by owning His Cause were assured of their Welcome yea even His Chaplains which most troubled Him were debarred from their Ministery But God supplyed this Want by more plentiful Assistances of His Holy Spirit and made Him like the Ancient Patriarchs both a King and a Priest at least for Himself and here He sacrificed Praises even to that God that hid himself and composed those most Divine Meditations and Soliloquies that are in His Book spending that time in Converse with Heaven which He was not suffered to employ with Men in whom He delighted While the King's Soul was thus winged above the walls of His Prison and the Fortune of His Enemies they that had put an end to the War yet could not find the way to Peace for their Souls were unequal to the Victory and could not temper their Success the two Sects falling to dissension and turning all their Arts and arms one against another The Presbyterians had the richer and more splendid followers but the Independents the most fierce subtle and most strongly principled to Confusion the first was Powerful in the Parliament but the latter in the Army After they had a long time practised on one another the very same Methods they had acted against the King and such as favoured Him in the Parliament of which there were alwayes some Number among them the Independents still gained upon their Opposites making the Presbyterians odious by Libels composed to render their Government Ridiculous and Tyrannical by putting them upon all the most envious Employments as Reforming the Universities and Sequestring Ministers that refused to take the Covenant Not contented thus to deal with their elder Brethren by spoiling them of their Honour they proceeded to strip them of the reliques of their armed Power surprising them in Parliament with a Vote to disband all the Souldiers that were not in Fairfax's Army then the General turns out those Commanders of Garrisons that were any way inclined to them Besides this they either corrupted with Gifts or frighted some of the most busie yet obnoxious Presbyterians either wholly to come over to them or be their Instruments in disturbing and revealing the Counsels of that Party which was done under the Scheme of Moderation and reconciling the Godly one to another Anno 1647. The Presbyterians at last awakened with the daily wounds of their Power and the dishonour of their Party began now to be more afraid of their Stipendiaries than they were of their Sovereign for they found that they lost all that by the Victory which they sought by the War therefore to break the confidence of the Independents and make themselves free they Vote in the Parliament where they had most Voices That to ease the Common-wealth of the Charges in maintaining the Army 12000 of the Souldiers should be sent over to Ireland and all the rest to be disbanded except 6000 Horse 2000 Dragoons and 6000 Foot who should be disposed in different and distant places in the Nation to prevent any Rising The Commanders and Independents soon discovered the Artifice that it was not to ease the Nation but weaken them therefore they employ the Inferiour Officers being persons that by dissimulation and impudence having accustomed themselves to much speaking did at last imagine their Vices were Gifts of the Holy Ghost and so were fit to disquiet the minds of men to possess the common Souldiers with a fear of Disbanding without their Arrears or else to be sent into that unquiet Island to perish with hunger and cold and the surprises of a treacherous Enemy This presently set the Army to Mutiny which while it was in the Beginnings the Commanders make semblance of Indignation at it seem very busie to compose it and Cromwell to make the Parliament secure calls God to witness that he was assured the Army would at their first Command cast their Arms at their Feet and again solemnly swears that he had rather himself with his whole Family should be consumed than that the Army should break out into Sedition Yet in the mean time he and his Creatures in the Army administer new fuel to the flames of it and when they had raised their Fury to such heat that it was at last concocted to a perfect defection from all obedience to the Parliament they lay aside their disguises and post from London to the Head Quarters where the Synagogue of Agitators was seated and to whom was committed the management of this Conspiracy This Conventicle was made up of two of the most unquiet and factious in every Regiment of Foot and each Troop of Horse their business was to consult the Interests of the whole Army and when they had moulded their Pretences and Arts to their grand Design to instruct the ruder part of it in their Clamours and Injuries and to corrupt all the Garrisons by Emissaries to the same enterprises At last they extended their Cares to the whole British Empire and dictate what their pleasures are concerning England and Ireland Which was in both Kingdoms to establish the Power and Liberty of the People for they openly professed an intent for Democracie And because about an hundred Officers in the Army would not be forward in the Sedition they were by this Committee of Adjutators and the secret intimations of the Commanders cashiered Thus the Counsels of both Parties being directed to overthrow their contrary each thought the Person and Presence of the King would be no vain advantage to their Designs for they would Honest their actions with a care of Him therefore the Presbyterians had it in Consultation to Order Col. Greves who had the Command of the Guard about the King at Holmeby to remove His Majesty to London the Intelligence of which coming to the Army by the treachery of a certain Lord they immediately send a Body of Horse to prevent them and to force Him into their own Quarters Thus was that Religious Prince made once more the mock of Fortune and the sport of the Factions and was drawn from His peaceful Contemplations and Prospect of Heaven to behold and converse with men set on Fire of Hell These
pretending to preserve Me have meditated nothing but my Ruine O deal not with them as blood-thirsty and deceitful men but overcome their Cruelty with Thy Compassion and My Charity And when Thou makest inquisition for my Blood O sprinkle their polluted yet penitent Souls with the Blood of thy Son that thy destroying Angel may pass over them Though they think my Kingdomes on Earth too little to entertain at once both them and Me yet let the capacious Kingdom of thy infinite Mercy at last receive both Me and my Enemies When being reconciled to Thee in the Blood of the same Redeemer we shall live far above these Ambitious desires which beget such mortal Enmities When their hands shall be heaviest and cruelest upon Me O let Me fall into the arms of thy tender and eternal Mercies That what is cut off of my Life in this miserable moment may be repayed in thy ever-blessed Eternity Lord let thy Servant depart in Peace for my eyes have seen thy Salvation Vota dabunt quae bella negârunt M. S. Sanctissimi Regis Martyris CAROLI Primi Siste Viator Luge Obmutesce Mirare Memento CAROLI ILLIUS Nominis pariter insignissimae Pietatis PRIMI MAGNAE BRIT ANNIAE ILLIUS Qui Rebellium Perfidiâ primò deceptus Dein Perfidorum Rabie percussus Inconcussus tamen LEGUM FIDEI DEFENSOR Schismaticorum Tyrannidi succubuit Anno Salutis Humanae MDCXLVIII Servitutis Britannicae Primo Felicitatis Suae Primo Coronâ Terrestri spoliatus Coelesti donatus Sed Sileant periturae Tabellae Perlege RELIQUIAS verè Sacras CAROLINAS In Queis Ipsa Sui Iconem Aere perenniorem vivaciùs exprimit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CAROLI Primi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epitaphium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 SIstas sacrilegum Pedem Viator Nè forsan temeres sacros sepulchri Augusti Cineres Repôstus hîc est In Terrae Gremio Decor Stupórque Humani Generis Senex Infans Prudens scilicet Innocén sque Princeps Regni praesidium Ruina Regni Vitâ Praesidium Ruina Morte Quem Regem potiùs Patrém ve dicam O Patrem priùs deinde Regem Regem quippe Suî Patrémque Regni Hic Donúmque Dei DeÃque Cura Quem Vitáque refert refértque Morte Ringente Satanâ Canente Coelo Diro in Pegmate Gloriae Theatro Et Christi Cruce Victor Securi Baptistae emicuit Ruina Felix Quâ Divum Carolus secutus Agnum Et postliminio domum vocatus Primaevae Patriae fit Inquilinus Sic Lucis priùs Hesperus Cadentis Resplendet modò Phosphorus Reversae Hic Vindex Fidei sacer Vetustae Cui par est nihil nihil secundum Naturae Typus absolutioris Fortunae Domitor ferendo suae Qui quantum Calicis bibit tremendi Tantundem sibi Gloriae reportat Regum Maximus unicúsque Regum In quo Res minima est fuisse Regem Solus qui superâ locatus Arce Vel Vitâ poterit frui priore Quum sint Relliquiae Cadaver Umbra Tam sacri Capitis vel ipsa sacra Ipsis Eulogiis coinquinata Quaeque ipsum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prophanat Sistas sacrilegum Pedem Viator Tho. Pierce D. D. Coll. Magd. apud Oxon. Praeses An EPITAPH upon KING CHARLES SO falls that stately Cedar while it stood That was the onely glory of the Wood Great CHARLES thou earthly God celestial Man Whose life like others though it were a span Yet in that span was comprehended more Than Earth hath waters or the Ocean shore Thy heavenly virtues Angels should rehearse It is a the am too high for humane Verse He that would know thee right then let him look Vpon thy rare incomparable Book And read it o're and o're which if he do Hee 'l find thee King and Priest and Prophet too And sadly see our loss and though in vain With fruitless wishes call thee back again Nor shall oblivion sit upon thy Herse Though there were neither Monument nor Verse Thy Suff'rings and thy Death let no man name It was thy Glory but the Kingdoms Shame J. H. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE CONTENTS Anno MDC KIng CHARLES His Lineage and Birth Page 1. MDCII A presage of His Succession to the Crown p. 3. MDCIV. He is Created Duke of York His proficiency in his Studies p. 4. MDCXII His Succession in the Dukedom of Cornwall His Juvenile Exercises p. 5. MDCXVI He is Created Prince of Wales p. 6. MDCXVIII The Death of Queen Anne His great improvement in Theological Controversies p. 9. MDCXXII His Journey into Spain and the success of it p. 10. MDCXXIII His Return The Proposal of a Match with France p. 14. MDCXXV King James his death His Succession in the Kingdom The State of it at his first coming to it His Coronation p. 15. MDCXXVII The Expedition to the Isle of Rhee Assistance afforded to Rochel p. 23. MDCXXX The Birth of Prince CHARLES p. 29. MDCXXXII Tumults in Ireland Lord Strafford sent Deputy thither p. 32. MDCXXXIII His Journey into Scotland and Coronation there p. 33. MDCXXXIV The business of Ship-money p. 36. MDCXXXVII Troubles began in Scotland and upon what pretence p. 40. MDCXXXIX An agreement made with the Scots p. 44. MDCXL An Army raised against the Scots A Parliament called p. 45. MDCXLI The Arraignment and Execution of the Earl of Strafford The Factious Designs of the Zealots in the Parliament p. 50. The Rebellion in Ireland p. 64. The Queens departure out of England p. 80. The Kings withdrawment from London p. 83. His repulse at Hull by Hotham p. 88. Armiesraised on both sides p. 97. The Battel at Edge-hill p. 102. MDCXLIII The Queens return into England The Kings Successes p. 105. MDCXLIV The Kings Victories over the Rebels p. 113. The Tryal and Execution of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury p. 118. His Character p. 120. MDCXLV The Battel at Naseby and its ill influence upon the Kings Party p. 128. MDCXLVI The Kings withdrawment to the Scottish Army p. 133. MDCXLVII The King removed from Holmby to Hampton-Court His flight into the Isle of Wight p. 139. MDCXLVIII The Treaty in the Isle of Wight p. 164. A Court Erected for the Tryal of the King p. 179. His Tryal and Carriage there p. 192. His Martyrdom and Burial p. 201. His Incomparable Book p. 208. His Character His Religion p. 212. His Justice p. 223. His Clemency p. 225. His Fortitude p. 229. His Patience p. 232. His Humility p. 237. His choice of Ministers of State p. 239. His Affection to his People p. 240. His obliging Converse p. 243. His Fidelity p. 244. His Chastity p. 246. His Temperance p. 247. His Frugality p. 248. His Intellectual abilities p. 250. His skill in all Arts. p. 252. His Eloquence p. 254. His Political Prudence p. 255. The censure of his Fortune p. 257. A presage of His Fall and the future State of the Royal Family p. 259. His Recreations p. 260. The features of His Body p. 262. His Children p. 263. An Appendix p. 267. His Select Meditations upon the denial of the Attendance of His Chaplains p. 268. Penitential Meditations and Vows in His Solitude at Holmby p. 281. His Declaration after the Votes of no further Address p. 287. Meditations upon Death after the Votes of Non-Address and His Majesties closer Imprisonment in Carisbrook Castle p. 293. His Epitaph 312. His Epitaph by Doctor Pierce p. 313. Another Epitaph by J.H. p. 315. THE END Lately Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Amen-Corner THE Estate of the EMPIRE or an Abridgement of the Laws and Government of GERMANY farther shewing what Condition the EMPIRE was in when the Peace was Concluded at Munster Also the several Fights Battels and Desolation of Cities during the War in that EMPIRE And also of the GOLDEN BVLL In 8º The Sicilian Tyrant Or The Life and Death of AGATHOCLES With some Reflections on our Modern Usurpers 8º The ROYAL MARTYR and the Dutiful Subject in two SERMONS By Guilbert Burnet 4º
Relations of His Gallantry when She was told of His passing through Paris She answered as it is reported That if He went to Spain for a Wife He might have had one nearer hand and saved Himself a great part of the labour Anno 1625. In the midst of these Preparations for War and Love King James died at Theobalds Sunday March 27. Anno 1625. and Prince CHARLES was immediately proclaimed at the Court-Gate King of Great Britain France and Ireland and so throughout all the Three Kingdoms with insinite Rejoycings The people expecting all the benefits of the happiest Government under Him whose private and vouthful part of Life had been so spent that it had nothing in it to be â—â—â—used and where the eager inquisitors for matter of Reproach met with no satisfaction An Argument of a solid Vertue that could hold out against all the Vices of Youth that are rendred more impetuous by Flatteries and Plenty which are contâ—nuâ—lly resident in great Courts For had any debauchery polluted His earlier days it had been onblished by those who in scarcity of just Accusations did invent unimaginable Calumnies Nor could it have been hid for in a great Fortune notâ—ing is concealed but Curiosity opens the Closeâ—â—â—nd Bed chambers especially of Princes and discovers their closest retirements exposing all their Actions to Fame and Censure Nor did the King deceive their hopes they being the happiest people under the Sun while He was undistuibed in the administration of Justice His first publick Act was the Celebrating His Fathers Funeral whereat He Himself was Chief Mourner contrary to the Practice of His Royal Predecessors and not conformable to the Ceremonies of State Either preferring Piety to an unnatural Grandeur or urged by some secret Decree of Providence that in all the ruines of His Family He should drink the greatest draught of Tears or His Spirit presaging the Troubles of the Throne He would hallow the Ascent to it by a pious act of Grief When He had pay'd that debt to His deceased Father He next provided for Posterity and therefore hastened the coming over of His dearest Consort Whom the Duke of Chevereux had in His Name espoused at the Church of Nostre-Dame in Paris and He receiving Her at Dover the next day after Trinity-Sunday at Canterbury began His Conjugal Embraces A Lady of most excellent Endowments who assumed to Her self nothing in His Good Fortune but the Joy and in His Evil bore an equal share for She reverenced Him not his Greatness Thus having dispatched the affairs of His Family He applyes Himself to those of His Kingdoms which too much Felicity had made unmanageable by a moderate Government And He seemed not so much to ascend a Throne as enter upon a Theatre to wrestle with all the difficulties of a corrupted State whose long Peace had softned almost all the Nobless into Court-pleasures and made the Commons insolent by a great Plenty The Rites and Discipline of Religion had been blotted out by a long and uninterrupted Prosperity and Factions crept from the Church into the Senate which were made use of by those that endeavoured the alteration of Government and the Resolves of that Council were the dictates of some heady Demagogues who fed the Vulgar with hopes of Novelty under the name of Liberty so that the King could not endure their Vices nor they His Vertues whence came all the Obstructions to His Designs for Glory and the Publick good The Treasury had been exhausted to satiate the unquiet and greedy Scots and the people were taught not to supply it unless they were bribed with the blood of some Minister of State or some more advantages for Licentiousness Each of these single would have ennobled the Care of an Ordinary Prudence to have weathered out but when all these conspired with the traitorous Projects of men of unbounded and unlawful hopes they took from Him His Peace and that which the World calls Happiness but yet they made Him Great and affording Exercises for His most excellent Abilities rendred Him Glorious The different states of these Difficulties when like Clouds they were gathering together and when they descended in showres of Blood divide the King's Reign into two parts The first could not be esteemed dayes of Peace but an Immunity from Civil War The other was when He was concluded by that Fatal Necessity either to part with his Dignity and expose His Subjects to the injuries of numerous Tyrants or else to exceed the calmer temper of His peacefull Soul and make use of those necessary Arms whereby He might hope to divert if possible the Ruine of Church and State which He saw in projection In the first Part He had no Wars at home but what was in the Houses of Parliament which though their first Institution designed for the production of just Counsels and assistances of Government yet through the just Indignation of Heaven and the practises of some unquiet and seditious persons became the wombs wherein were first conceived and formed those monstrous Confusions which destroyed their own Liberty caused our Miseries and the King's Afflictions His First Parliament began June 18. At the opening of which the King acquainted them with the necessity of Supplies for the War with Spain which they importunately had through His Mediation engaged His Father in and made it as hereditary to Him as the Crown His Eloquence gave powerful Reasons for speedy and large summs of Money did also audit to them the several disbursements relating both to the Army and Navy that He might remove all Jealousies of mis-imployment and give them notice how well He understood the Office He had newly entred upon and how to be a faithful Steward of the Publick Treasure But the Projectors of the alteration of Government brought into debate two Petitions one for Religion the other for Grievances formed in King James's time which delayed the Succours and increased the Necessities which at last they answered but with two Subsidies too poor a stock to furnish an Army with yet was kindly accepted in expectation of more at the next Session For the Infection seising upon London the Parliament was adjourned till August when they were to meet at Oxford and at that time He passed such Acts as were presented to Him At the next Session He gave a complying and satisfactory answer to all their Petitions and expected a Retribution in larger Subsidies towards the Spanish War But in stead of these there were high and furious debates of Grievances consultations to form and publish Remonstrances Accusations of the Duke of Buckingham Which the King esteeming as reproaches of His Government and assaults upon Monarchy dissolves that Aslembly hoping to find one of a less cholerick complexion after His Coronation This inauspicious Meeting drew aster it another Mischief the Miscarriage of the Designs upon Spain For the supplies of Money being scanty and slow the Fleet could not go forth till October 8. an unseasonable time in the British Seas
Earls of Roxbrough and Traquaire pretended to protect who indured some affronts that their Patience might provoke a greater rage in the Multitude which a vigorous punishment had easily extinguish'd For they that are fierce in a croud being singled through their particular fears become obedient And that rabble that talks high against the determinations of their Prince when danger from the Laws is within their ken distrust their companions and return to subjection But it soon appeared that this was not the bare effort of a mutinous Multitude but a long-formed Conspiracy and to this Multitude whose present terrour was great yet would have been contemptible in a short space there appeared Parties to head them of several Orders Who presently digested their Partisans into several Tables and concocted this Mutiny into a formal Rebellion To prosecute which they mutually obliged themselves and the whole Nation in a Covenant to extirpate Episcopacy and whatsoever they pleased to brand with the odious names of Heresie and Superstition and to defend each other against all Persons not excepting the King To reduce this people to more peaceful Practices the King sends Marquess Hamilton one who being caressed by His Majesties Favour had risen to such a degree of wealth and greatness that now he dreamed of nothing less than Empire to bring his power to perfection at least to be Monarch of Scotland to which he had some pretensions by his birth as His Commissioner Who with a species of Loyalty dissembled that pleasure which he took in the opposition of the Covenanters whose first motions were secretly directed by his counsels and those of his dependents Traquaire and Roxbrough for all his Allies were of that party contrary to the custom of that Country where all the Members of a Family espouse the part of their Head though in the utmost danger and his Mother rid armed with Pistols at her Saddle-bow for defence of the Covenant By his actings there new seeds of Discontents and War were daily sown and his oppositions so faint that he rather encreased than allayed their fury By several returns to His Majesty for new Instructions he gave time to the Rebels to consolidate their Conspiracy to call home their Exiles of Poverty that were in foreign Armies and provide Arms for open Force By his false representations of the state of things he induced the King to temporize with the too-potent Corruption of that Nation an artifice King JAMES had sometimes practised and by granting their desires to make them sensible of the evils which would flow from their own counsels Therefore the King gave Order for revoking the Liturgy the High-Commission the Book of Canons and the Five Articles of Perth But the Covenanters were more insolent by these Concessions because they had gotten that by unlawful courses and unjust force which Modesty and Submission had never obtained and imputing these Grants to the King's Weakness not his Goodness they proceeded to bolder Attempts Indicted an Assembly without Him in which they abolished Episcopacy excommunicated the Bishops and all that adhered to them Afterwards they seised upon the King's Revenue surprised His Forts and Castles and at last put themselves into Arms. Provoked with these Injuries the King amasses a gallant Army in which was a very great appearance of Lords and Gentlemen and with these marches and incamps within two miles of Berwick within sight of the Enemy But their present Condition being such as could endure neither War nor Peace they endeavoured to dissipate that Army which they could not overthrow by a pretence to a Pacification For which they petition'd the King who yielded unto it out of His innate tenderness of His Subjects Blood So an Accord was made June 17. Anno 1639. and the King disbands His Army expecting the Scots should do the like according to the Articles of Agreement But they being delivered from Fear would not be restrained by Shame from breaking their Faith For no sooner had the King disbanded but they protested against the Pacification printed many false Copies of it that might represent it dishonourable to the King retained their Officers in pay changed the old Form of holding Parliaments invaded the Prerogatives of the Crown and solicited the French King for an aid of men and money This perfidious abuse of His Majesty's Clemency made those that judge of Counsels by the Issue to censure the King's Facility Some wondred how He could imagine there would be any Moderation in so corrupt a Generation of men and that they who had broken the Peace out of a desire of War should now lay aside their Arms out of a love to Quiet That there would be always the same causes to the Scots of disturbing England and opposing Government their unquiet nature and Covetousness therefore unless some strong impression made them either unable or unwilling to distract our quiet the King was to look for a speedy return of their Injuries Others attributed the Accord to the King's sense that some eminent Officers in His own Camp were polluted with Counsels not different from the Covenanters and that Hamilton His Admiral had betrayed the seasons of fighting by riding quietly in the Forth of Edinburgh and had secret Conference with His Mother the great Nurse of the Covenant on Ship-board But most referred it to the King 's innate tenderness of His Subjects Blood and to His Prudence not to defile His Glory with the overthrow which seemed probable of a contemptible Enemy where the gains of the Victory could not balance the hazards of attempting it Anno 1640. While men thus discourse of the Scots Perfidiousness the King prepares for another Army and in order thereto calls a Parliament in Ireland and another in England for assistances against the Rebels in Scotland The Irish granted Money to raise and pay 8000 men in Arms and furnish them with Ammunition Yet this Example with the King's account of the Injuries done to Him and this Nation by the Scots and his promise of for ever acquitting them of Ship-money if now they would freely assist Him prevailed nothing upon the English Parliament whom the Faction drew aside to other Counsels And when the King sent Sir Henry Vane to re-mind them of His desires and to demand Twelve Subsidies yet to accept of Six he industriously as was collected from His own and His Sons following practices insisted upon the Twelve without insinuation of the lesser quantity His Majesty would be contented with which gave such an opportunity and matter for seditious Harangues that the House was so exasperated as that they were about to Remonstrate against the War with Scotland To prevent this ominous effect of the falseness of His Servant the King was forced to dissolve the Parliament May 5. yet continued the Convocation which granted Him 4 s. in the pound for all their Ecclesiastical Promotions But the Laiety that in the House had not time to declame against His Majesties Proceedings did it without doors for being
be watched and the Navy to be new rigged and fitted for the Sea New Plots were also discovered and Strange and unheard-of Counsels to murder the most Eminent Patriots are brought to light A Taylor in a ditch hears some desperate Cavaliers contriving the Death of Mr. Pym. A Plaister also taken from a Plague-sore was sent into the House to the same person that the Infection first seising on a Member of the quickest senses might thence more impetuously diffuse it self upon all the most Grave Senators Such like Plots as these and whatsoever could be devised were published to make the Vulgar think those demands of the Faction seem modest their dangers being so great which were very unjust And lest the King should at His coming into the North make use of that Magazine at Hull which at His own Charges He had provided for the Scotch Expedition for His own defence the Faction to secure that and the Town for their future purposes send down Sir John Hotham without any Order or Commission from either House of Parliament to seise on them This Man of a fury and impudence equal to their Commands when the King petitioned by the Gentlemen of York-shire to employ those Arms and that Ammunition for the Safety and Peace of that County where some of the Factious Members of Parliament had begun to form the like Seditions with those of London would have entred Hull Anno 1642. April 23. insolently shut the Gates upon Him and would not permit Him though with but twenty Attendants for He offered to leave the Guard of Noblemen and Gentlemen which followed Him without The King thereupon Proclaims him Traytor and by Letters complains of the Indignity and requires Satisfaction But the Faction rendred the Act so glorious that the House of Commons by their Votes approved what he had done without their Command and clamoured that the King had done them an injury in proclaiming so innocent a Member Traytor Ordered the Earl of Warwick to whom they had committed the Command of the Navy to land some men out of the Ships at Hull and to transport the Magazine there from thence to London An Order of Assistance was also given to several of their Confidents as a Committee of both Houses to reside at Hull and the Counties of York and Lincoln were commanded to execute their commands Besides they sent a Commission to Hotham to prosecute the Insolencies he had begun and kindle that War which took fire on the whole Nation and in a short space consumed him and his Son who were executed by the Instructors of his Villany For he fell under that same Fate which attends all the Instruments of Great Crimes to be Odious and suspected by those that made use of them Therefore they gave such a power to the Lord Fairfax in York-shire as did conclude the diminution and submission of Hotham to His Commands This caused him to reflect with grief and madness upon his first ministery to the Faction which appeared every day more monstrous to his Conscience being now spoiled of that Grandeur that he hoped would have been its reward and awakened by those Desolations in the whole Kingdom which followed it and were but as the Copies of his Original Treason Therefore he thought to expiate his former guilt by surrendring the Town to Him from whom he had detained it But his practices were discovered to the Faction by One whom they had sent thither in pretence to preach the Gospel but in truth secretly to search into the intrigues of his Counsels so that he perished in his design being neither stout nor wise enough in just enterprises nor of a pertinacy sufficient for a prosperous Perfidiousness And although in his Ruine the King observed how great a draught was offered to the highest thirst of Revenge yet He did truly bewail him and indeed he was so much the more to be pitied because his cruel Masters deluded him to a silence of their black Secrets with a false hope of Life till the Ax was upon his Neck So betraying his Soul to a surprise by his Spiritual enemies as his pretended Spiritual Guides had done his Body to them The Insolency of Hotham who acted according to his Instructions and late Commission beginning acts not usual in Peace nor justifiable by Law for he issued out Warrants for the Trained Bands to march into Hull with their Arms where he forced them to leave them and nakedly return to their homes that so they might be obnoxious to his Violence and the practices of the Committee which were sent down into the North to debauch the People in their Loyalty made the King intend His own Security by a Guard which the Gentry and Commonalty of York-shire that were witnesses of the Injury offered to their Prince did willingly and readily make up No sooner had the King expressed His intention of such a Guard but the Faction who were watchful of all opportunities of beginning a War and ingaging those that either through Fear or Weakness had hitherto submitted to their Impostures in a more obliging guilt for now the greatest part of the Peers who were of the most Ancient Families and Noblest Fortunes and a very great number of the House of Commons Persons of just hopes and fair Estates who perceiving the designs of the Disturbers scorned any longer to be their Slaves yet not thinking it safe to provoke the fury of the Vulgar Tumults by a present opposition had withdrawn from the Parliament to follow the King and His Fortune and every day some more were still falling off took this occasion to commence our Miseries and open those Sluces of Blood which polluted the whole Kingdom For upon the first Intelligence of it they filled the House of Commons and the City with Clamours That His Majesty had now taken Arms to the overthrow of them and the Protestant Religion and that they were not any longer to think the Happiness of the Kingdom did depend upon the King or any of the Regal Branches of that Stock that it would argue no want either of Duty or Modesty if they should depose Him By these Harangues they so heated the Parliament that was now more penurious than before in persons of Honour and Conscience to such a degree of Fury that unmindful how they themselves for eight months before upon impossible Fears and improbable Jealousies had taken a Guard they Resolved upon the Question that the King by taking to himself such a Guard did intend to levy War against the Parliament With an equall fury they Issue out Commissions into all parts of the Kingdom and appoint certain days for all the Trained Bands to be put into a posture of War sending down some of their Members to see to the execution of these Commands and to seise on the Magazines in the several Counties To all these their violent and unjust attempts the King first opposes the Law in several Declarations manifests the Power of Arms to be
with Adversity and to make Him glorious by Sufferings which being well born truly prove men Great yet would He furnish Him almost by a Miracle likewise with such Advantages in the conduct of which His Prudence and Magnanimity might evidence that He did deserve Prosperity and by clearing up even this way His eminent Vertues warn the following Ages from a Credulity to unquiet Persons since the best of Princes was thus infamously slandered From all these concurring Causes each one in their Way and Order did the King's strength so far increase as that He won many Battels and was not far from Conquest in the Whole War had not God seen fit to afflict this sinful Nation with Numerous and most Impious Tyrants and make us feel that no Oppressions are so unsupportable as those which are imposed by such as have made the highest Pretensions to Liberty of which we had bitter experience after the War was sinished that was now begun For there had been some slight Conflicts e're this in the several Counties betwixt the Commissioners of Array and the Militia with various Successes which require just Volumes and compleat Histories to relate and cannot be comprehended in the short View of the King's Life where it is only intended to speak of those Battels in which the King in Person gave sufficient evidence of His Wisdom and Valour The first of which was at Edge-Hill on Octob. 23. For the King had no sooner gotten a considerable Force though not equal to those of His Enemies but He marched towards London and in His way thither met with Essex's Army that were come from thence to take Him The King having viewed their Army by a Prospective-glass from the top of that Hill and being asked afterwards by His Officers what He meant to do To give them battel said He with a present Courage it is the first time I ever saw the Rebels in a body God and good mens Prayers to Him assist the Justice of My Cause and immediately prepared for the Fight which was acted with such a fury that near 6000 according to the common Account but some say a far less number were slain upon the place Night concluded this Battel which had comprehended the whole War had not the King 's prevailing Horse preferr'd the Spoils to Victory and left the Enemy some advantage to dispute for her But the King had all the fairest marks of her favour For though He had lost His General yet He kept the Field possessed the dead Bodies opened His way toward London and in the sight of some part of the Army of Essex who accounted it a Victory that He was not totally routed and killed took Banbury and entred Triumphantly into Oxford which He had designed for His Winter-quarters with 150 Colours taken in sight And having assured that place He advances towards London whither Essex had gotten before Him and disposed his bassled Regiments within ten miles of the City yet the King fell upon two Regiments of them at Brainford took 500 Prisoners and sunk their Ordnance From thence intending to draw nearer London He had intelligence that the City had poured forth all their Auxiliaries to re-inforce Essex's Troops to which being unwilling to oppose His Souldiers wearied with their March nor thinking it safe to force an Enemy to fight upon Necessity which inspires a more than Ordinary Fury He retreats to Oxford having taught His Enemies that He was not easily to be Overcome For in the management of this Battel He did not only undeceive the abused world of those Slanders which His Enemies had polluted Him with but He exceeded that Opinion His own Party had of His Abilities And though He parted from London altogether unexperienced in Martial affairs yet at Edge-Hill He appeared a most Excellent Commander His Valour was also equal to His Prudence and He could as well endure Labours as despise Dangers And by a communication of toils encouraged His Souldiers to keep the Field all the night when they saw He refused the refreshments of a Bed for He sought no other Shelter from the injuries of the Air than His own Coach These Vertues and this Success made such an impression on the Parliament that though they took all courses to hide the Infamy of their worsted Army yet in more humble Expressions than formerly they Petitioned the King for a Treaty of Peace which His Majesty very earnestly embraced But the Faction who were frighted with these Tendencies to an Accommodation cause some of the City to Petition against it and to make profer of their Lives and Fortunes for the prosecution of the War Encouraged by this they form their Propositions like the Commands of Conquerours and so streighten the Power and Time of their Commissioners that the Treaty at Oxford became fruitless which there had taken up all the King's employment this Winter though abroad His Forces were busie in several Parts of the Nation not without honour Anno 1643. At the Opening of the Spring the Queen comes back to England bringing with Her some considerable Supplies of Men Money and Ammunition and Her coming was entertained with such a Series of Successes that the King that Summer was Master of the North and West except some few Garrisons Which so dismayed the Parliament that very many of them were preparing to quit the Kingdom and had the King followed His own Counsels to march immediately towards London and not been fatally over-born at a Council of War which it is said His Enemies at London did assure their Party would so be first to attempt Gloucester He had in the judgement of all discerning men then finished the War with Glory But here He lay so long till Essex had gotten a Recruit from London and came time enough to relieve the Town though in his return the King necessitated him to fight worsted him near Newbery and so bravely followed him the next day that He forced the Parliaments Horse which were left in the Reer to seek their safety by making their way over a great part of their Foot yet lost on His side much Noble Blood as the Earls of Carnarvan and Sunderland and Viscount Falkland This last was lamented by all being equally dexterous at the Pen and Sword had won some Wreathes in those Controversies that were to be managed by Reason and was eminent in all the Generous parts of Learning above any of his Fortune and Dignity After this Encounter the King returns to Oxford to Consult with those Members of both Houses that had left the Impostures and Tumults at London to joyn with Him for the common benefit who being as to the Peers the far greater and as to the Commons an equal Number with those at Westminster they assumed the Name and Authority of Parliament and deliberated of the ways of Peace and means to prevent the Desolations which the Faction so furiously designed who were now resolving to encrease our Miseries by Calling in the Scots to their
Election of Friends he was determinated to the Good and Wise and such as had both Parts and Desires to profit the Church had his closest Embraces if otherwise it happened their frauds not his choice deserved the blame Both Papists and Sectaries were equally his Enemies one party feared and the other hated his Vertues Some censured him of too much Heat and a Zeal for Discipline above the Patience of the Times But his geatest unhappiness was that he lived in a Factious Age and Corrupt State and under such a Prince whose Vertues not admitting an immediate approach for Accusations was to be wounded in those whom He did Caresse But when Faction and Malice are worn out by time Posterity shall ingrave him in the Albe of the Most Excellent Prelates the most indulgent Fathers of the Church and the most injured Martyrs His blood was accompanied with some tears that fell from those Eyes which expected a pleasure at his Death and it had been followed with a more general mourning had not the Publick Miseries and present fears of Ruine exacted all the Stock of Grief for other objects About this time the Faction clove into two Sects the Presbyterian and Independent which hitherto had been united under one name of Patriots or Godly had joyntly conspired War and disturbed the Peace and by various Arts had acted all their lusts under the name and Authority of Parliament For they would either early in the morning before the House was full or late at night when those whose cares were most for the Publick were absent being assured of the Speaker propose and Vote what served for their Design If any thing contrary to it was about to be resolved in a full Assembly they by multitude of Scruples would so disturb the Debates that the determination was deferr'd to a desired Opportunity But if these failed then would they surprise the House with another Vote that should weaken and hinder the Execution of the former When the most conscientious were too numerous for them then would they make necessities to send the less pliant to their wills into the Country Thus the Lesser but more industrious Party did circumvent the Greater that were not so wary nor diligent While they thus joyntly contrive the Publick Ruine they had gotten themselves into the most considerable and profitable Offices of the Kingdom But the Presbyterians having the advantage in Number and Power and the dissension in their Opinions growing still higher by the Animosities of the inferiour and obscurer parts of their Sects there was neither Faith nor Love among them but what Fear and Necessity did force them unto The Independents who comprehended all the several herds of Hereticks Anabaptists Seekers Millenaries c. though they were the Disciples of the other yet excelled their Masters in Art and Industry had their private Junto's and meetings apart to mould their Projects and assign to each of their Confidents their several Scenes and Methods and by proper Applications to mens several humours had exceedingly encreased their strength in the Multitude only they wanted the Power of the Sword and the most useful Offices to perfect their Empire This they effected by those very practices they had learned from the Presbyterians and by procuring the Ordinance of Self-denial as they called it they turned out Essex whom they had before secretly caused to be suspected and who had neither glory in his War nor security or quiet in his Peace from his Generalship and with him also the other Leaders that were favourers of the Presbytery under pretence that it was not fit that any Members of Parliament should be encouraged to a continuance of the War by enjoying the profitable and powerful Offices in the Army to which they would now give a new Module Having by this Artifice displaced those whose Power they feared they brought in as many Candidates of their own Sect as they could to be Colonels and Sir Thomas Fairfax was appointed General This Man both Parties did the more easily consent in because he was known to be of sufficient Personal Valour and of no private Designs obstinate by a natural Melancholy rather than pertinacious in any Interest and rather free from Baseness than ambitious of Vain-glory by all these Qualities they supposed he would be obedient to the Resolves of his Masters But the Independents that were better informed of his ductile Spirit and how easily he might be imposed upon by a Species of Religion got the great Patron of all the wildest and most unreasonable Sectaries Oliver Cromwell at first to be admitted into his Counsels and afterwards to be the Director of all his actions under the title of Lieutenant General For although he likewise by the Self-denying Ordinance was made incapable of any Office in the Army being a Member of the Parliament yet those Troops of Fanaticks whom he had amassed and formerly led under the Command of the Lord Grey of Wark and the Earl of Manchester both which he had cast off were instructed to refuse the Conduct of any one but him He was therefore permitted by the Parliament as the General desired for a time to continue in the Army but he never left it till he had changed that ruined the Parliament and turned out the General that thus was the Author of his unlawful Power For this Man having a long time been poor and necessitous the Patrimony that was left him being profusely spent and nothing remaining but the Instruments of his Crimes a bloody and fierce nature a greedy soul full of bold and unjust hopes yet able to conceal them with a profession of Modesty a contempt of Religion and Friendship yet highly pretending to both till he had smote under the fifth rib those credulous hearts that trusted him he was fitted for the most impious enterprises for vexed by a pressing and tedious poverty he resolved to indeavour the utmost distance from such a Condition though by the greatest wickedness therefore used the Power he had now gotten to overthrow the whole State and establish himself in an absolute and unsupportable Tyranny which is the common issue of assaulting a Just and Lawful Prince with Arms. With these Tragedies and Changes was the Winter spent at London while the King at Oxford waits for the Issue of the Treaty at Vxbridge which as all other Consultations for Peace was vain and fruitless For the Faction would alwayes obstruct those endeavours by their proper Methods If the Condition of their affairs were prosperous then would they make their Demands like Impositions on conquered Slaves detesting to supplicate that the acquisitions of their Swords and Blood should be confirmed by a worsted Enemy In a more humble fortune they would deprecate their drooping Party not then to think of a Reconciliation which their unprosperous Arms must necessarily render harder than their hopes and that it was not for the Honour of a Parliament to seem to yield to any thing by fear or compulsion Besides
these devices many fictitious Letters were composed false Rumours divulged and witnesses suborned to make men suspect that many dangerous Plots and portentous Designs were disguised in these Overtures of Accord Therefore the Commissioners of Parliament were instructed to offer no Expedient for an Accommodation nor hearken to such as were tendred to them in the Name of the King His Majesty seeing and bewailing his Condition that He must still have to do with those that were Enemies to Peace prepares Himself for the War at the approaching Spring and although this Winter was infamous with many losses either through the neglects or perfidiousness of some Officers yet before the season for taking the field was come His Counsels and Diligence had repaired those damages Anno 1645. In April He sends the Prince to perfect the Western Association and raise such Forces as the necessities of the Crown which was His Inheritance did require with Him is sent as Moderator of His Youth and prime Counsellour Sir Edward Hide now Lord High Chancellour of England whose Faithfulness had endeared him to His Majesty who also judged his Abilities equal to the Charge in which He continued with the same Faith through all the Difficulties and Persecutions of his Master till it pleased God to bring the Prince back to the Throne of His Fathers and him to the Chief Ministery of State After their departure the King draws out His Army to relieve His Northern Counties and Garrisons But being on His march and having stormed and taken Leicester in His way He was called back to secure Oxford which the Parliament Army threatned with a Siege But Fairfax having gotten a Letter of the Lord Goring's whom a Parliament Spy had cajoled to trust him with the delivery of it to His Majesty wherein he had desired Him to forbear ingaging with the Enemy till he could be joyned with Him he leaves Oxford and made directly towards the King that was now come back as far as Daventrey with a purpose to fight Him before that addition of strength and at a place near Naseby in Northampton-shire both Armies met on Saturday June 14. Cromwell having then also brought some fresh Horse to Fairfax whose absence from the Army at that time the King was assured by some who intended to betray Him should be effected Nevertheless the King would not decline the Battel and had the better at first but His vanquishing Horse following the chase of their Enemies too far a fatal errour that had been twice before committed left the Foot open to the other wing who pressing hotly upon them put them to an open rout and so became Masters of His Canon Camp and Carriage and among these of His Majesties Cabinet in which they found many of His Letters most of them written to the Queen which not contented with their Victory over His Forces they Print as a Trophee over His Fame that by proposing His secret Thoughts designed only for the breast of His Wife to the debauched multitude and they looking on them through the Prejudices which the Slanders of the Faction had already formed in their minds the Popular hatred might be increased But the publication of them found a contrary effect every one that was not barbarous abhorred that Inhumanity among Christians which Generous Heathens scorned to be guilty of and the Letters did discover that the King was not as He was hitherto characterized but that He had all the Abilities and Affections as well as all the Rights that were fit for Majesty and which is not usual He grew greater in Honour by this Defeat though He never after recovered any considerable power For the Fate of this Battel had an inauspicious influence upon all His remaining Forces and every day His losses were repeated But though Fortune had left the King yet had not His Valour therefore gathering up the scattered remains of His broken Army He marches up and down to encourage those whose Faith changed not with His Condition At last attempting to relieve Chester though He was beset behind and before and His Horse wearied in such tedious and restless Marches yet at first He beat Poyntz off that followed but being charged by Fresh Souldiers from the Leaguer and a greater Number He was forced to retreat and leave some of His gallant Followers dead upon the place After this He draws towards the North-East and commands the Lord Digby with the Horse that were lest to march for Scotland and there to joyn with Montross who with an inconsiderable company of men had got Victories there so prodigious that they looked like Miracles But this Lord was surprised before he could get out of York-shire for His Horse having taken 700 of the Enemies Foot were so wanton with their Success that they were easily mastered by another Party and he himself was compelled to fly into Ireland These several Overthrows brought another mischief along with it for the King's Commanders and Officers broke their own Peace and Agreement which is the only Comfort and Relief of the Oppressed and which makes them considerable though they are despoiled of arms by imputing as it useth to be in unhappy counsels the criminous part of their misfortunes to one another But many gallant Persons whom Loyalty and Religion had drawn to His Service endured the utmost hazards before they delivered the Holds He had committed to their trust and by that means employing the Enemies Arms gave the King time who was at last returned to Oxford to provide for His Safety Hither every day sad Messages of Ruines from every part of the Nation came which though they seemed like the falling pieces of the dissolved world yet they found His Spirit erect and undaunted For He was equal in all the Offices of His Life tenacious of Truth and Equity and not moveable from them by Fears a Contemner of worldly Glory and desirous of Empire for no other reason but because He saw these Kingdoms must be ruined when He relinquished the care of them But that which most troubled Him were the Importunities of His own disconsolate Party to seek for Conditions of Peace which He saw was in vain to expect would be such as were fit to accept for His former experience assured Him that these men would follow the Counsels of their Fortune and be more Insolent now than ever And for Himself He was resolved not to sacrifice His Conscience to Safety nor His Honour to Life This He often told those that thus pressed Him and did profess in His Letter to Prince Rupert who likewise moved Him to the same that He would yield to no more now than what He had offered at Uxbridge though He confessed it were as great a Miracle His Enemies should hearken to so much Reason as that He should be restored within a Month to the same Condition He was in immediately before the Battel at Naseby But yet to satisfie every One how tender He was of the Common Safety He sent
several Messages to the Parliament for a Treaty and offers to come Himself to London if He may have security for Himself and Attendants All which were either not regarded or answered with Reproaches And because the people began to murmur at so great an earnestness of the Faction to continue the Wounds of the Nation open and bleeding since there were many Forts yet held out for the King by Gallant Persons besides the Lord Hopton had an Army yet unbroken and Ormond and Montross had considerable Interests in Ireland and Scotland all which might be perswaded in a Treaty to part with those Arms which could not be taken from them without much blood and it was the common belief that these men sought for Victory not Peace and Liberty which was now tendred therefore to raise suspicions in the Vulgar it is suggested that the Cavaliers who came to Compound would take the advantage of the King's Presence if He were permitted to be there and kindle a new flame and War in the City And that it might be thought they had real grounds for these fears the Disarmed Compounders were commanded to depart above twenty miles from London and to injealous the people more all the transactions of the King in the Irish Pacification were published and amplified with the malicious Slanders and Comments of the implacable and conscious Demagogues that so the terrors of the Vulgar being augmented they might be frighted into a longer patience The King finding these men irreconcileable to Peace and that they had declared against His Coming though without a Caution tryes the Leaders of the English Army but they proved no less pertinacious and were now approaching to besiege Oxford Providence not leaving any more Choice but only shewing Him a way for a present Escape He goes in a Disguise which when Necessity cloathes Royal Persons with seems like an Ominous Cloud before the Setting of the Sun to the Scotish Camp that was now before Newark where the Ambassadour of the King of France who was then in the Leaguer had before covenanted for His Majestie 's Safety and Protection and the Scotish Officers had engaged to secure both Him and as many of His Party as should seek for Shelter with them and to stand to Him with their Lives and Fortunes Anno 1646. The King being come thither May 4. made a great alteration in affairs Newark was surrendred by the King's Command and Sir Thomas Glemham having gallantly defended Oxford till the besiegers offered honourable Conditions delivered up that also But the greatest Change of Counsels were at London where when it was related among whom the King had sought a Sanctuary various and different Discourses were raised Some wondred that His Majesty had sought a Refuge there where the Storm began and how He could apprehend to find Relief from those that were not only the Authors of His Troubles but now the great Advancers of His Overthrow And they conceived no Promises or Oaths can be a sufficient Caution from those People that have been often Persidious Others judged that in those necessities wherein the King was concluded it was as dangerous not to trust as to be deceived no Counsel could be better than to try whether a Confidence in them would make them faithful and whether they would then be honest when they had the Critical Opportunity to testifie to the world that they intended not what they did but what they said That they fought not against Him but for Him But a last sort bewailed both the greatness of the King's Dangers that should make Him seek for Safety in a tempestuous Sea and false bottom as also the debaucheries of the English Genius which was now so corrupted that their Prince was driven to seek an Asylum from their injuries among a people that were infamous and polluted with the Blood of many Kings While others discoursed thus of the King's journey the Parliament heated by the Independents fiercely declared against the Scots who were removing the King to Newcastle and used several methods to make them odious and drive them home For they kept back their Pay that they might exact Free-Quarter from the Country then they did extenuate their Services derogate from their famed Valour upbraid them as Mercenaries threaten to force them out by the Sword All which while the English Presbyterians though they wish'd well to their Brethren yet lest they should seem to indulge the Insolencies of a strange Nation did not dare to plead in their defence But the Scots themselves for a time did justifie their Reception and Preservation of His Majesty by the Laws of Nature Nations and Hospitality which forbid the delivery and betraying of those that have fled to any for Succour The Democratick Faction urged that it was not lawful for the Scots their Hirelings and in their Dominion to receive the King into their Camp without the leave of their Masters and keep Him without their Consent These Debates were used to raise the King's price Which when the Scots were almost assured of to make their ware more valuable they solicite the King in hopes of their Defence to command Montross to depart from his noble Undertakings in Scotland where he had almost recovered the Overthrow Roxbrough and Traquaire had betrayed him unto and was become formidable again as also the Loyal Marquess of Ormond to desist from his gallant Oppositions both of the Irish Rebels and English Forces Which when the King had done being not willing those Gallant Persons should longer Hazard their brave Lives and after both these Excellent Leaders had more in anger than fear parted with their unhappy Arms that they might have a colour of betraying Him whom the General Assembly of Scotland which useth to hatch all the Seditions to the heat and strength of a seeming Authority had forbid to be brought into His Native and Ancient Kingdom as He affectionately call'd it they tender Him the Covenant pretending without that Chain upon Him they did not dare to lead Him into Scotland This His Majesty refused not if they would first loose those Scruples of Church-Government which lay upon His Conscience Therefore to untie those Knots Master Henderson that was then the Oracle of the Kirk and the great Apostle of the Solemn Covenant was employed to converse with Him But the Greatness of the King's Parts and the Goodness of His Cause made all his attempts void for the Papers being published every one yielded the Victory to His Majesty and unfortunate for he returned home and not long after died as some reported of a Grief contracted from the sense of his Injuries to a Prince whom he had found so Excellent While these things were acting at Newcastle the bargain was stroke at London and for 200000 l. His Majesty stripp'd of those Arms He had when He came among them was delivered up as it were to be scourged and crucified to some Commissioners from the Parliament But to Honest their Perfidiousness they add this
Death and to murder Him while He was in the Scotch Camp so at once to satisfie their own Revenge and Load their Enemies with the Infamy of the Murder yet could not then perform it were now fiercefor a speedy and secret Assassination by Pistol or Poison Others would have Him tryed and condemned by their Council of War But the Chiefs thought fit to proceed more artisicially in their Crime and when they should get more Authority destroy Him by a Parliamentary way of Justice To bring this about they must proceed to make Him more odious that the People might be patient while they kill Him and undo them To proceed therefore to their Impiety Cromwell and his Creatures stickle fiercely in the House of Commons and cause the Parliament to send not Conditions of Peace to be treated on but Propositions like Commands that admitted no dispute which if the King had yielded unto He had despoiled Himself of Majesty and been thought guilty of so much want of Spirit as would conclude an unfitness for Empire besides such a voluntary Diminution would have been equally unsafe as unglorious And if He did not then He was to be esteemed the only Obstacle of the Universal Peace And lest the King should put them to more tedious Arts by signing them they themselves to divert Him privately procure more soft Articles and professed to be sorry the Presbyterian Sowreness and Rigour did yet leaven the House which made these Propositions so unpleasant The King could not but perceive the practices of the Army yet being resolved that no Dangers whatsoever should make Him satisfie those unreasonable Demands of the Parliament which granted would have been the heaviest oppression on His Subjects and the greatest injury to His Posterity He could possibly be guilty of For to good Princes the Safety of their People and their own Memory which is built upon the Happiness of Posterity through their Counsels are more pretious than Life and Power and although Providence and the Malice of His Enemies had obstructed His way to Glory by Victories and Success yet He would trace it in the unenvied and unquestionable paths of Constancy and Justice Therefore to make His denial of them advantageous to Himself by a seeming confidence in the Army's profers thereby to oblige if it were possible those that had no sense either of Faith or Honour or at least to injealous those two Rivals for His Power and commit them the King absolutely rejects the Parliaments Propositions and requires the Demands of the Army as more equal and fit for a Personal Treaty and that the Army also should nominate Commissioners Cromwell and His Complices seemed to be joyful for this Answer of His Majesty which had preferred them before their Competitors to the Honour of Justice and Moderation in the Eyes of the People but yet secretly did they exasperate the minds of the more short-sighted Commons against the King for this Affront And to the King they profess a shame and trouble upon their Spirits for so they loved to speak that they could not now perform their Promises sometimes they excused themselves by a Reverence to the Parliament at other times by the fierceness of the Adjutators and when by these excuses they had coloured their delayes to some length they began to interpret their sayings otherwise than the King apprehended them to forget what they had assured Him of and at last openly to refuse any performance To all these Perfidies they add other Frauds to beget a fear in Him of the Adjutators and the Levellers who they informed Him meditated His Murder professed they could not for the present moderate their bloody and impetuous Consultations but when they should recover the lost Discipline of their Army then they might easily and speedily satisfie their engagements to Him To give credit to their words the Fury of the Adjutators was blown to a more conspicuous Flame their Papers were published for a change of Government call'd The Case of the Army and The Agreement of the People the animations of Peters and another of the same Diabolical spirit saying His Majesty was but a dead Dog were divulged and all were communicated to some Attendants about the King with an Advice from the Chiefs of the Army to escape for His Life for they were unwilling He should be killed while they helplesly look'd on The fury and threatnings of men of such destructive and bloody Principles who accounted all things lawfull that they could do that Providence administring Opportunity did invite and licence their impieties and who imputed all their lusts that had no colour from Justice to the Perswasions of the Holy Spirit were not to be despised nor was the King to abandon His Life if He could without sin preserve it to a longer waiting upon God Therefore with three of His most trusted Attendants in the dark tempestuous and ominous night of Novem. 11. He leaves Hampton-Court some say uncertain where to seek safety others that He intended to take Ship but being disappointed in His Expectation He was at last fatally led into the Power and when He could not escape committed Himself to the Loyalty and Honour of Col. Hammond a Confident of Cromwell's who had been but a little before made Governour of the Isle of Wight for this very purpose and was by him conveyed to Carisbrook-Castle the very Pit His Enemies had designed for Him For it was discoursed in the Army above a fortnight before that the King e're long would be in the Isle of Wight and the very night He departed from Hampton-Court the Centinels were withdrawn from their usual Posts on purpose to facilitate His flight The all-wise God not permitting Him to fly from those greater Trials and more Glorious Acts of Patience He had designed for Him Being here in this false Harbour He minds that business which lay most on His Heart the Settlement of the Nation He sends Concessions to the Parliament more benign and easie than they could desire or hope together with His Reasons why He could not assent to their Demands and earnestly solicites them to pity the Languishing Kingdom and come to a Personal Treaty with Him on His Concessions and the Army's Demands But the Conspirators to cut off all hopes of a Treaty take this Occasion to send four Preliminary Articles which if He would pass as Acts they would treat of the rest These were so unjust that the Scotch Commissioners in the Name of their Kingdom declare against them in publick Writings and following the Messengers of Parliament to the Isle of Wight do in the presence of His Majesty protest against them as contrary to the Religion the Crown and Accords of both Kingdoms The King according to His wonted Wisdom and Greatness of Mind presently returns them an Answer to shew the Injustice of having Him grant the chief things before the Treaty which should be the Subject of it and to give them such an Arbitrary Power to the ruine
of all the People This Answer He delivered sealed to their Messengers who desired that they might hear it read and that they might be dealt with as Commissioners not as bare Carriers a greater trust than which their Masters had not committed unto them and promise upon their Honour that it should not be any prejudice to Him But His Majesty had no sooner read it than they finding it not to the Gust of those that sent them notwithstanding the Faith they had given cause their Just Sovereign to be kept close Prisoner force away His Chaplains Dr. Sheldon now Lord Bishop of London and Dr. Hammond both which He highly valued for their Integrity Wisdom Piety and Learning and His other Servants even those whom the Parliament had placed formerly about Him and in whom His Goodness had wrought both an Affection and Admiration of Him and permit none about Him but such as they hoped would be a Watch upon Him and whose barbarous Souls might trample on His Fortune Besides they set strict Guards at His Doors and Windows lest any Letters might come to Him or be sent from Him The like reception His Letter found with the Parliament For Cromwell and His Officers were resolved to go on with their Design and having so long used the Adjutators as served to frighten the King into the Toils they had set they soon quiet them which was not difficult being a Company of hot-headed fellows that could only talk not form a Counsel or a Party to endure a Storm by executing some of their most pertinacious Leaders and being free of that care applyed their practices wholly to the Destruction of His Majesty To this purpose they mould the Four Votes for No Addresses to the King but before they bring them into Publick they send into their several Counties about forty or fifty of the principal Members who they thought would oppose them to raise Money for the Souldiers Nevertheless the first of those Votes was contested against so strongly that the Debates lasted from ten of the Clock in the Morning till seven in the Evening and though they thus wearied the more Honest Party yet could it not pass till the Conspirators had engaged that no worse thing should be done to the King The remaining Votes were dispatched in half an hours time when those of the more sober Principles were gone forth to refresh themselves and the Conspirators still kept their Seats The House of Peers were not so hasty in them as the Commons had been and their Debates vexed the Conspirators with Delayes till those who were sent by the Army to thank the Lower House for their Consent to these Desires of the Souldiers did also threaten the Upper for their long Deliberations some new Terrors were also added for they quartered two of their Regiments at White-Hall under colour of guarding the Parliament but in truth to work upon the Lords which had its effect for many that had the most Honourable thoughts in this business forsook the Parliament and then three or four which often was the fullest Number about those times in that Honse joyn with the Commons in their Votes for no Addresses This prodigious Persidiousness in Parliament and Army both which had so frequently declared and ingaged themselves by Oaths and Promises to preserve the King in His Just Rights fill'd all men with amazement and indignation to see how little they valued their Faith who pretended so high to Religion therefore each of them were put to satisfie the Common Fame Cromwell to some would have cover'd this Impiety with another that as He was praying for a blessing from God on his undertakings to restore the King to his pristine Majesty his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth that he could not speak one word more which he took as a return of Prayer and that God had rejected Him from being King To others he did impudently assert That it was lawfull to circumvent a wicked man with deceit and frauds The Conspirators in the Parliament strove to honest their Proceedings by a Declaration and assign in it for Causes of their Perjuries all the Calumnies that had been raised against the King by His most professed Enemies or from those uncertain Rumours which themselves had invented adding and repeating others which had even in the Parliament House been condemned as Forgeries yet now were used as necessary Veils for a more execrable Falshood Which infamous Libel they cause to be sent to all the Parishes of the Kingdom to be divulged supposing that none did dare to refute their black and most malicious Slanders or that none could publickly do it because they set strict Watches upon all the Printing-Presses They likewise Commanded the Curates to read it in their several Churches and commend it to the People And that these might the more readily observe their Orders they at the same time strictly enjoyn the payment of Tithes and Vote that the Dean and Chapiter's Lands which they had designed for profane Uses and never intended they should be for the Emolument of Church-men should be set apart for Augmentations for their Preachers pretending a fervent zeal for the propagation of the Gospel when they did most dishonour it By their Agents and the Anabaptists with other Hereticks and Schismaticks they solicite the unacquainted Rabble to sign to Gratulatory Addresses to approve what they had already done and petition for a speedy progress in the Ruine of His Majesty But all these their cursed Projects failed for several Answers to their Defamations were published One writ by the King Himself another by * A full Answer Sir Edward Hyde and a third by * The Regal Apology Dr. Bates all which proved the Monstrous Falshoods of their Paper and that the Faction were guilty of what they imputed to the King and this with such evidence that none of their most mercenary Writers or the most foul-mouthed Conspirators did dare or hope with Success to reply unto The Curates coldly if at all observed their Orders and there came so few Petitions and those signed by such contemptible and lewd Persons as they rather loaded the Faction with more hatred than gave them any credit While generally in every place none of the People could contain their fury against these Impostors but publickly cursed them and their Infamous Adherents For their Miserie 's made them sensible of the want of that Prince whose gentle and just Rule had brought them to such an inebriating Prosperity that they had forgot the Minister of their Happiness But now they found Government when it was out of His hand like Moses's Rod cast on the ground transformed to a Serpent and that those who pretended to free them from Tyranny had deluded them into the most insufferable Slavery wherein they were either totally despoiled of all things that render our Being comfortable or they were not secure in the use of them Religion the Ornament of the present and the Pledge of
a future Life was so dishonoured by Schisms and Heresies fomented to weaken the People by Divisions to a tameness under their Oppressors by Fasts for the most impious Designs and Thanksgivings for prosperous Crimes that some men concluded it to be nothing else but the Invention of Tyrants and the Disguise of Villains and therefore did forsake it and turn Atheists Others that did still find the Inward Consolations of it yet feared openly to profess it lest they should be taken for those that pretended a Love to God that they might more securely destroy men Liberty also was now but an empty name for all the Common Prisons were too narrow to receive even those that did not dare to break the Laws so that the Houses of Noble-men were converted to Gaols for those that were unfortunate in honest enterprises where they were to languish with want and sickness and not be called to know their Offence or their Accusers because they had not guilt enough for a publick Condemnation Some were put a Ship-board in the midst of Summer there to contract Diseases Others were sold Slaves to foreign Plantations Many to escape such nasty Confinements or an ignominious Torture fled from their Native Soil either to the Neighbouring Countries where they were the Evidences of the Infamy and Barbarousness of our Nation or seeking for Shelter in the Isles and Deserts of America polluted those Rocks and Seas with English Blood Propriety was no longer hedged up by Law but whom the Violence of the Souldier did not impoverish the frauds of Committee men would from whose Rapines none were secure that had not been as criminal as themselves and few safe that did not seek their favour and bow down to their Greatness These men taking advantage of the common evils to satisfie either their private revenge or lusts for their Proceedings were not regulated by the known Laws but the secret Instructions of their Masters in Parliament and Army or their own Pleasures were the Rules of administring Justice An honest Fame likewise was a Mark for Ruine for if any by just Arts had got the Esteem of the People and the Affections of His Neighbourhood and did not comply with their Interest first he was vexed with Slanders and Reproaches and afterwards with Sequestration especially if he were a Minister and it was their common Principle that an Honest Cavalier was the worst Enemy and a Cavalier Saint did the most hurt so that both their Vices and Vertues were equally hated Common Converse was dangerous for they had Informers in every place and Spies almost in every Family of Note Servants were corrupted to accuse their Masters and the Differences in Religion did injealous and arm the nearest Relations one against another Men out of a mutual distrust would hasten from Company to consult in private their peculiar Safety for they knew their Words were observed and their Secrets sought after Few Families but had by the Civil War some loss to bewail some mourned over their disagreeing Members in different Camps and had cause to fear which side soever prospered they must be miserable in some part These and many more Miseries were more highly embittered by the uncertainty of a Remedy For the Parliament that had the name of Government were guilty of all these Reproaches of a Community being Slaves to those whose interest it was to keep us thus miserable and if at any time they were free from the yoke of the Army the two Sects kept them so divided each Party labouring by Votes and Counsels to circumvent the other that they could not mind the Universal Benefit Besides the Power they exercised was too much to be well used for they engrossed the Legislative Authority and the Exercise of Jurisdiction So that they would make Laws according to their Interest and execute them according to their Lust this day's Vote should contradict the former day's Order and to morrow we must violate what to day we solemnly swore to observe so that men knew not what to obey nor where to rest Thus all hopes of Liberty and Peace were lost in the Confinement of the King who only was found able and willing to determine our Miseries For His Principles were Uniform and His Endeavours for a Settlement constant besides His Adversities had illustrated if not calcined His Endowments For now when He had no Friends Counsellors or Secretaries His Discourses with Commissioners upon their several Addresses and His Declarations of His own Injuries the Nations Slavery the Injustice of His and their Adversaries were so excellently and prudently managed that they undeceived the greatest part and reconciled many of His bitter Enemies therefore the whole Nation now panted for a Return to the Obedience of such an inestimable Prince These Considerations caused several attempts for His Deliverance some Private and others more Publick The first was managed by those Servants whom the Parliament had placed about Him for these won by His Goodness of which they were daily witnesses twice plotted His Escape and ventured their Lives for His Liberty but failed in both designs and the last being discovered before it could be put into action One Rolfe a bloody Villain that had also endeavoured to poison Him for which though he was publickly accused yet was acquitted by that Judge whom the Conspirators had employed to hear that cause waited to kill Him as He should descend from His Chamber Anno 1648. The more publick was that of the whole Nation for inraged with their own Oppressions and the Miseries of their Prince men in most Counties even of those that had adhered to the Parliament but now vexed that they had been so basely deluded draw up Petitions for a Personal Treaty with the King that the Armies Arrears being paid they should immediately be disbanded that Relief should be sent into Ireland and England quite eased of the Contribution which they could no longer bear To these Petitions there were such innumerable Subscriptions that the Officers of the Army and Parliament were mad to see their Threats of Sequestration Imprisonment and Death to make no Impression and the Promises they likewise made were slighted because discredited by their former Perjuries The first Petitioners were the Essex men who came in such Numbers as had not been seen before as if they would force not intreat for what was necessary After them those of Surrey whom by the command of the Officers and Parliament-men the Souldiers assault at the Parliament-Doors kill some wound more and plunder all and for this brave Exploit upon unarmed Petitioners they have the Thanks of the Commons and a Largess for their Valour that so the People might be affrighted from offering Petitions which before the very same men had declared to be the Birth-right of every English-man While men see and admire the Returns of the Divine Justice and the reciprocal motions of the Popular heat that the very same Parliament that first stirr'd up this way of tumultuary Petitions
they despaired of any happy â—â—ue But beyond the Faith of these men and the Hopes of the other the King 's incredible Prudence had found Temperaments for their most harsh Propositions And by a present Judgement and commanding Eloquence did so urge His own and refell their Arguments that He forced an Admiration of Himself and which was a Testimony of the Divine Assistance drew many of the unwilling Commissioners to His own Opinion though their Commission and the danger of their Lives necessitated them contrary to the dictates of their own Consciences to prolong the Debates with a wonderful Lenity proved their Demands unjust yet granted what was not directly against His Honour and Conscience Thus devesting Himself of His own Rights He demonstrated that He had those Affections which might justly style Him the Father of His Country For He indeavoured by His own Losses to repair the damages of His People Yet the King saw by the Obstinacy of the most Powerful of those He Treated with that they intended nothing less than Peace nor any thing more than His Destruction which that it might be adequate to their Malice they would have it accompanied with the damnation of His Soul as He Himself in bitterness complained to One of His Servants pressing Him to do those things which they themselves acknowledged sinful as the Alienation of Church-Lands Although His Majesty was thus sensible of their insatiable thirst for His Blood yet because He had passed His Royal Word not to stir out of that Island He did not hearken to the same Servant who perswaded Him to provide for His Safety by flight which He assured Him was not difficult and in administring to which He offered to hazard his own blood But the King alwayes thought His Life beueath the Honour of Faithfulness and would not give His Enemies that advantage over His Fame which their unjust Arms and Frauds had gotten upon His Person chusing rather to endure whatsoever Providence had allotted for Him than by any approach to Infamy seek to protract those dayes which He now began to be weary of For that life is no longer desirable to Just Princes which their People either cannot or will not preserve And He thought it more Eligible to die by the Wickedness of Others than to live by His own While the Treaty thus proceeded the Army under the Command of the Lord Fairfax and Ireton this last was Bold Subtle Perfidious and Active in all Designs so that his Soul being congenial with that of Cromwell had been the cause of an Alliance betwixt them for he had Married one of Cromwell's Daughters and therefore was left to hover about the General as an evil Genius that he might do nothing contrary to their Impious Design drew towards London and quartered within half a days march from the City that if their Interest did require they might the more suddenly oppress those who were less favourable to their Enterprises The Officers did at first publickly profess a great Modesty as that they would quietly submit to the Orders of the Parliament that they did prefer the Common Peace to their own private Advantages and should be glad to be dismissed from the toyls of War yet in private practised an universal Confusion for mingling Counsels with their Factious Party in the Two Houses they set up again the Meetings of their Adjutators framed among themselves Petitions against the Treaty and to require that all Delinquents without difference wherein they included the Person of the King might be brought to Tryal and by their Emissaries abroad drew some inconsiderable and ignominious persons by representing large spoils in the subversion of Monarchy and imaginary advantages by the change of Government to subscribe to them When they thought these practices had produced their desired effect and they had infected most of the Souldiers in the several Garrisons and that more Parties of their Army were gathered to their Quarters about London Ireton under pretext of a Contrast betwixt him and Fairfax withdraws himself privately to Windsor Castle where being met by some of his Complices in the Parliament they joyntly frame a Declaration in an imperious and affected Style Wherein in the name of the Army he maliciously declaims against all Peace with the King and His Restitution to the Government afterwards he impiously demands that he may be dealt with as the Grand and Capital Delinquent with these he mingles some things to terrifie the Parliament some to please the Souldiers and others to raise hopes of Novelty in the Rabble This being prepared and the Treaty now drawing towards an End which those of the Faction had prolonged and disturbed that the Army might have more time to gather together and the Commanders having a perfect Intelligence how all things in the Isle of Wight and in the Parliament did strongly tend to an Accommodation they thought it now seasonable to begin their intended Crime Therefore they speedily call a Council of War at which met the Colonels and other inferiour Officers all men of Mercenary Souls Seditious Covetous and so accustomed to Dissimulation that they seemed to be composed by nature to frame and colour Impostures They began their Meeting with Prayers and Fasting pretending to inquire and seek the Will of God concerning the Wickedness they had predetermined to act This is the constant practice of such who would most securely abuse the Patience of the People while they commit the most horrid Crimes For not being able to honest their Iniquities by any colour of Reason or any Command of the known Will of God they pretend to a guidance by Revelation and Returns of Prayer This Imposture they had hitherto successfully used and the credulous Rabble of the common Souldiers were drawn to a perswasion that God did counsel all the Designs of these armed Saints Thus having prefaced their Villany Ireton produces his Remonstrance which being read among them was received by the Souldiers who through a pleasure in blood and hopes of Spoil are used to praise every thing of their Chiefs whether good or bad that tends to disturbance and continuance of War with as great an Applause as if it had been an Oracle from Heaven and to make it the more terrible they styled it the Remonstrance of the Army and order it to be presented to the Parliament in the name of the Army and People of England When this Remonstrance was published the minds of men were variously affected Some wondred that persons of so abject a Condition should dare to endeavour the alteration of an Ancient Government an attempt so far above their fortune and to design against the Person of their Sovereign who by the Splendour of his former Majesty and by a continued Descent from so many Royal Progenitors had derived all that challenges the Reverence of the People And they thought the act so full of a manifest Wickedness that the Contrivers could not really intend the Execution but only used it as a Mormo
to frighten the King and Parliament to hearken to their Pretensions of a lesser guilt Others considering their former Crimes and Injuries both to King and People and their damnable blasphemies of the Almighty God did truly judge that their preceding Iniquities had now habituated and temper'd them for the extremest mischiefs and that having proceeded thus far they would think their Safety consisted in an accumulation of their Sins Only they admired that these men would discredit their ancient Arts of pretending to God's Direction in which they could not so easily by every Vulgar judgement be deprehended by boasting of the Concurrence of the People which was too evident a Cheat for not one in a thousand through the whole Nation but did abominate their practices But others more Speculative knew it was the accustomed Method of the Subverters of a lawfull Magistracy and Invaders of a Tyranny first to seek the favour of the Rabble by high pretences of Liberty and Justice and then to boast of it as though they had it and were entrusted by the People to recover what they presented to their hopes and desires and that these men following the same practices would be the greatest Oppressors of those whom they pretended to vindicate The Parliament though hitherto they had been very obsequious to the Army yet the Members now meeting in greater Numbers than usually and preferring the utmost hazards to a Compliance with this Remonstrance laid it aside and fell to debate the King's Concessions which then lay before them This free and stout Carriage of theirs was much resented by the Souldiers who stormed at the contempt of those whose Grandeur depended upon their Arms. And lest they should miscarry in their Chief Design and lose the Sacrifice to their Ambition they immediately sent a Party of their Army into the Isle of Wight to secure the King these laying hold upon Him with a most Insolent Rudeness not permitting the delay of a Breakfast forced Him from the Island into Hurst Castle an unwholesome and sordid place The other part of their Army they cause to march towards London with all the imaginable signs of terrour as if they went to sack and plunder an Enemies Town When they had entred they were quartered in those Houses of the King and Nobility which were nearest the Parliament-House hoping by the greatness and nearness of the danger so to affright those Members who were not so wicked as to comply with them that they should voluntarily withdraw and hiding themselves leave the possession to their own scanty Party For then the Violence would seem less and give more Authority to their unjust Decrees But the honest Members were more in love with Justice and therefore not terrified with the Menaces and Clamours of the Souldiers but as inspired with some unaccustomed Courage at this time and thinking themselves guarded by the Priviledges of Parliament with a greater boldness than usually they did upon just designs they appear in the House Where the Commoners re-assuming the consideration of the King's Concessions continued that Debate till past Midnight the Factious Party and the Creatures of the Army still raising new Doubts and Scruples multiplying Cavils and by tedious harangues wasting the time that the more Just Party which consisted most of Gentlemen of Fortunes not accustomed to such Watchings and Fastings might be wearied out and leave them to their own Resolves and also that they might give time to the whole Army to march into the City that Night Among the rest Sir Henry Vane who was born to disquiet the world and to be a firebrand of Communities yet still carrying his designs of Confusion under a feigned meekness and simplicity of the Gospel This Man in the Isle of Wight had perswaded the King not to be prodigal in His Concessions that He had already yielded more than was fit for them to ask or Him to grant and undertook to make it evident to the whole world yet now did most fiercely and perfidiously inveigh against the Concessions as designed by the King under the species of Peace to ruine the Parliament and Common-wealth Yet at last notwithstanding those Terrours without and Troubles within the House came to this Resolve that The Kings Concessions were a sufficient ground for Peace Which was carried by Two Hundred Voices and there were searce Sixty Dissenters The next day the same Resolve was passed by the Lords in the very same terms not one dissenting Who immediately adjourned for a week to wait whether this fury of the Army would spend it self after so generous an opposition And the House of Commons sent some of their own Members to acquaint the Lord Fairfax and his Officers of this their Vote This free and publick detestation of the Crime that was designed did extremely enrage the Projectors of it and the Democratick Party in the House mingled Threatnings with their Advices For One of the Chiefs of the Faction could not forbear to assure them that If they continued in this their Resolve they should never after have Liberty of meeting there again Which accordingly was executed for the next day they were to meet there the Colonels had placed a guard of two Regiments of Foot and one of Horse upon the House of Commons who strictly keeping all the Avenues thereto that none might enter without their Licence laid hold upon Forty Members that were Persons of the most known Integrity and highest Resolution they denied admission to One hundred and fifty more and suffered none to enter of whose servile compliance they were not well assured Some that had escaped their observation and got into the House by tickets as from Friends or Servants they invite forth whom being once without doors they violently force away while they in vain pleaded the Privileges of Parliament The imprisoned Members they vex and torture with great Indignities exposing them to the mockeries and insolencies of the Common Souldiers although there were among them many that had before Commanded Armies Brigades and Regiments in the Parliament's cause against the King and others that had been most importunate assertors of their first injustice to their Prince Those that beheld these vicissitudes wondred and acknowledged the just Judgement of God that had thus visibly and properly punished the Injustice of these men against their Lawful Sovereign by the ministry of their own more vile and mercenary Souldiers and did thus upbraid them with the falseness of their Principles by which they acted against the King the very same now serving to honest this violence that was committed on them for both equally pretended to a Necessity of Reformation and Self-preservation Others were inquisitive for the faith of these men who taking up Arms for the Sacred Privileges of Parliament had now left nothing but the Walls of that House For the Number that would serve them was not equal to the Name of a Parliament being scarce the eighth part of that Convention and not much above Forty in
it were to be bought by the Misery of the Nation and therefore rejected the Propositions of the Army as the Conditions of His Safety when tendred to Him the day before His Murther because they would inslave the People Neither would He expose particular persons to an evident and inevitable danger though it were to secure Himself for when my Lord Newburgh and his Noble Lady at whose house in Bagshot He did stay as He was removed from Carisbrook to Windsor proposed to Him a way to escape from that bloody Guard that hurried Him to the Slaughter He rejected it saying If I should get away they would cut you in Pieces and therefore would not try their design though it seemed feasible With these Arts He did seek to oblige the Community but the Faction's Slanders hindred the Success His Obliging Converse which they the more easily obstructed because the King never affected Popularity for that consists in an industrious pleasing of the People in minute and ordinary Circumstances but He alwayes endeavoured by a solid Vertue their real Happiness and therefore in confidence of that neglected a specious Compliance with the less beneficial humours of the Vulgar so that the Multitude who are taken with things of the lightest consideration could not sufficiently value Him being not able to apprehend His worth for a Statist observes Moderate Princes are alwayes admired but Heroick are never understood On particular Persons if not the sworn Creatures of the Conspirators and by Treason made inhumane He seldom failed by conversing to take them His Trophies in this kind even when He was despoiled of means to bribe their hopes were innumerable and those that engaged against Him ere they knew Him after their knowledge of Him did curse their Credulity and their prosperous Arms. A clear instance of this to mention no more was in Master Vines one of the Presbyterian Ministeâ—â— who are conceived to be too tenacious of a prejudice against those that dislike their Government that were sent to dispute against Episcopacy for he admiring the Abilities of the King which He manifested in asserting of it professed to Master Burroughs one whose Attendance the King required and found him faithful to the extremest dangers in those enterprises in which he several times engaged for His Safety how he had been deluded to unworthy thoughts of the King but was now convinced to an exceeding Reverence of Him and hoped so of others and earnestly solicited those that attended on Him to use all means to rescue Him from the intended Villany of the Army saying Our Happiness was great in such a Prince and our Misery in the Loss of Him would be unspeakable Yet He never courted although He won them but His passage to their hearts was through their brain and they first Admired and then Loved Him As He was powerful to gain so He was carefull to keep Friends His Fidelity Fidelity to the Publick and Private was His chiefest Care for He knew how necessary it is for Princes to be faithfull because it is so much their Interest that others should not be false Though it is a Mystery of Empire with other Kings to proportion their Faith to their Advantage yet He abhorred to promise any thing which He could not Religiously observe Some over-sine Politici would have had Him grant all the Desires of the Faction as the most immediate way to their Ruine for it was supposed they could never agree in dividing the Spoil and their dissensions would have opened a way for the recovery of His abandoned Rights But He was so constant in all that was good that He thought the purchase of Greatness too vile for the breach of His Faith and He hated those acquisitions which would give Him cause to blush This Heroick Expression often fell from Him Leave me to My Conscience and Honour and let what will befall Me. His Enemies knew this so natural that if they could make their Propositions repugnant to His Conscience they were sure no Peace should obstruct their Designs Nay He was faithful in those Stipulations wherein their first Breach would have justified a departure from His Promise though He saw this Vertue would be rewarded with His Murther For when some of His Attendants at Carisbrook daily importuned Him to provide for His Safety from the perfidious Violence of the Army which every day they had informations of He made this return Trouble not your selves I have the Parliaments Faith and Honour engaged for My remaining here in Honour Freedom and Safety and I will not dishonour My self by Escaping As He was to the Publick so to His Private Obligations No assaults could take the Duke of Buckingham from His Protection for though His foreign Enterprises required supplies of Money and the Faction would not let the Bills for Subsidies pass unless they might be gratified with the Dukes blood or Degradation from His Trust the King would not buy them with the Life or Dishonour of His Friend And although he fell afterwards as a Sacrifice to the Common hate for so the Assassinate pretended that he might give a Splendor to his Crime It being more specious to revenge the Publick than private Injuries yet was he not the Kings's Offering In the Case of the Earl of Strafford this Honour seemed to be clouded But Posterity will see that that Noble Person was rather ravished from Him on design by his Enemies to rob him of the Glory of Fidelity than deserted by Him for He never left him till the Earl did abandon himself And a Penitence for a Submission not Consent to the Rape made a Satisfaction for the Offence and repaired the damage of the Injury For His Majesties Tears over him will embalm and preserve his name and blood to the honour of Following Ages more than the remnant of his dayes would have administred to his Glory It would be an Injury to His other Vertues to mention His Chastity and Temperance His Chastity because it is an Infamy to be otherwise unless to let Posterity know that no injured Husband nor Dishonoured Family conspired to His Ruine but such who were engaged to Him for preserving all their Rights in those Relations unattempted and securing them by His own example He witnessed His Conjugal Chastity the day before His Death a time not to be spent in falsities which was too little for necessary Preparations to appear before the God of Truth when He commanded the Lady Elizabeth to tell her Mother that His thoughts had never strayed from Her and His Love should be the same to the Last The purity of His Speech likewise testified the Cleanness of His Heart for He did abhor all Obscene and wanton Discourse And He was so far from defiling the Beds that He would not pollute the Ears of His Subjects This Chastity found no Assaults from Intemperance for He never fed to Luxury but Health His Temperance His strong Constitution required large Meals but His